Juli is a German rock/pop band from Gießen, Hesse, consisting of singer Eva Briegel, guitarists
Jonas Pfetzing and Simon Triebel, bassist Andreas "Dedi" Herde and
drummer Marcel Römer. The band was formed with this lineup from the
band Sunnyglade in 2001.

History

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Sunnyglade

In 1996 Sunnyglade was formed without a female singer, as an
all-male band, consisting of Andreas "Dedi" Herde, Martin Möller
(drums), Jonas Pfetzing, Marcel Römer and Simon Triebel, who was
also the singer. A female lead singer, Miriam Adameit, soon joined
the band. With this lineup, they recorded an album called
Pictures of My Mind (1998), which sold 500 copies. When
Adameit and Möller decided to leave the band in 2000, they were
joined by Eva
Briegel and Marcel Römer, and the list of band members has not
changed since. At that time, the group (still calling itself
Sunnyglade) focused on writing and performing songs with English
lyrics, and they enjoyed their first major success when they won
the Hessischer Rockpreis 2000 and finished second in the Deutscher
Pop-Preis contest.

After the signing of their first recording contract with EMI in early 2001,
Sunnyglade started working on recordings with producer Lutz
Fahrenkrog-Petersen. Soon the quintet decided to turn to songs with
German lyrics. At this time they also abandoned the name Sunnyglade
and all their songs, and renamed themselves Juli, which
they chose from the song with the same name by another band from
Berlin called Tex.

Juli

The band's first gigs as Juli took place in June 2002. They
recorded their first professional demo in October 2002 with
producer Michael Gerlach. Due to the positive feedback of various
record labels, their music publisher decided to organize a
showcase, which occurred on January 16, 2003, at the
Oxymoron in Berlin. Three months later, on April 24 Universal Music organized an "Unplugged
Showcase" for several artists in front of a jury. Singer Eva
Briegel and guitarist Jonas Pfetzing contributed four songs in the
name of the band. Presumably their record contract was a result of
that performance; they got the contract on the recommendation of an
A&R
rep who had seen them perform on January 16 and recommended them.
In August 2003, four years after they had set that goal, they
signed their first recording contract at Popkomm in Cologne.

Commercial breakthrough: "Perfekte Welle" "Es ist Juli"

In June 2004, Juli release their debut single "Perfekte Welle",
which turned into a kind of anthem for the new rise in popularity
of German song lyrics, and also gave its name to a collection of compilations of music with German
lyrics (Perfekte Welle - Musik von hier). Though the
single debuted at a modest number 38 on the German singles charts
and instantly fell out of the top 40 in its second week, the song
soon recovered and due to heavy radio airplay and massive CD single
sales, "Perfekte Welle" finally entered the German top 10 in its
eleventh week. The song peaked at number 2 four months after
release and eventually received a Gold
certification. However, "Perfekte Welle" (German for "Perfect
Wave") was the subject of controversy and was banned from radio and
TV stations after the 2004 Indian Ocean
earthquake (see below).

The band's critically acclaimed debut album Es ist Juli was
released in September 2004 and peaked at #2 in Germany, #4 in
Austria and #7 in Switzerland, selling more than 700,000 copies
within a few months. By July 2006, it had sold over 1 million
copies, and thus reached the status of a quadruple platinum record.
Though the album became the fourth most successful album of the
year (it stayed and in the German top 25 charts for a complete
year) and it spawned another four singles, only "Geile Zeit", the
album's second single, made it into the German Top 20. The song was
the winning title of the first Bundesvision Song Contest in
which Juli represented their home province of Hesse. In July of the same year, Juli
participated in the Berlin Live
8 concert.

After participating in a radio-tour organized by Eins Live
through Nordrhein-Westfalen in September 2004, Juli started their
own club tour through Germany, which was completely sold out. After
that followed a tour opening for Rosenstolz through Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland.

After the tsunami disaster in southeast Asia in December 2004,
when tidal waves killed more than 280,000 people, most radio
stations took "Perfekte Welle" out of rotation right away, because,
according to them, its lyrics had become involuntarily ambiguous
and could cause offense. The song is actually about a surfer who is
waiting for a wave to ride on, a metaphor for taking chances after
long periods of waiting and hoping. Apparently at various radio
stations during the first few days after the catastrophe, because
of auto rotation, the song popped up right after reports from the
affected area, and some of the audience considered this to be
deliberate sarcasm. Some fans tried to convince the stations that
the song had a positive message and nothing to do with the
disaster, but the band and Universal Music showed understanding
with the stations.

On February 12, 2005, Juli won the first prize in the
Bundesvision Song Contest in their home, Hesse, with the song
"Geile Zeit". A few days later the real "Es ist Juli" tour started,
in which the band played many concerts and festival gigs. They
spent most of the 2005 on tour. They also participated in the Live 8 concert in Berlin, where
they performed the songs "Geile Zeit" and "Perfekte Welle". At that
time three more singles were released: "Regen und Meer", "Warum",
and "November", but none had the same success as their predecessor.
The video of "Regen und Meer" got some attention in the media,
because the band was playing the part of a terrorist group from
1977 and referred directly to the Red Army Faction (RAF) and the abduction and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer.

The second album: Ein
neuer Tag

Eva Briegel live on the Ein neuer Tag tour.

From third quarter 2005 onwards, the band made very few official
appearances, choosing instead to retreat to Bochum to work on their second studio album. The
band decided to keep the overall tone of the album quieter and more
mature than their previous one. During 2006 they played mainly in
festivals, such as the
Schlossgrabenfest, Donauinselfest, and the Soundgarden
Festival. In July 2006, the new album was finally completed. The
time before the release of the album Ein neuer Tag (A New
Day) was filled with PR work. On September 22, 2006, the first
single of the album "Dieses Leben" was released, and it hit the top
5 single charts right away. On October 13, Ein neuer Tag
finally hit the album charts. It sold 75,000 copies within the
first week and reached position 18 in the World United Album
Charts, and with more than 200,000 pre-orders, it had already
reached platinum status by the release date.

On November 30, 2006, Juli won the German Bambi-award in the category
music national, and on December 7, 2006, they were awarded
the Eins-Live-Krone, Germany's most important radio listener
award.

After the release of "Wir Beide", the second single from the
album, Juli started touring to support Ein neuer Tag. Some
of the concerts sold out weeks in advance or had to be moved into
larger venues. After playing in festivals in summer, they will
start the second leg of their tour in autumn.

Originally they had planned "Am Besten sein" to be their next
single, which was to be released in January 2007. However, the
third single finally was "Zerrissen".

In September 2007, there will be a couple of new releases. On 21
September, the song "Ein neuer Tag" from the album of the same name
will be released. One week later, on 28 September, a live DVD and a
live album will be released, both with the name "Ein neuer Tag -
live".

Juli do not see themselves as a rock band, but call their
own music style "alternative pop". They put high expectations into
their lyrics and are always trying to reach more of an adult
audience rather than teenagers.

Juli are one of Germany's most-played bands on the radio; their
first three singles ("Perfekte Welle", "Geile Zeit", and "Regen und
Meer") all reached the top of Germany's airplay charts and all
remained in the Top 10 for several months. "Dieses Leben" also
repeated this success. It remained number one for five consecutive
weeks. They also managed to reach the top 5 with their current
single.

Third
Album

Juli have announced that after a much needed break after the
second album and tour, they have begun work on a new album.[1] Almost
one year later, they published some pictures and videos of their
recording studio on Myspace.[2]

Relationships to other
bands

At the same time as Juli started out with their success, there
were a couple of other bands with German lyrics who experienced a
breakthrough. Just before Juli rose to fame, the bands Wir sind Helden
(first release in 2003) and Silbermond (first release in March 2004) for
example, celebrated their first success. The fact that all 3 of
those bands appear with a female singer and German lyrics got them
a lot of attention at first. From the start of their career they
had to face such comparisons, which they strictly disclaimed. One
thing that is clearly missed out in that case is that all three
bands were already writing German songs, and played with the same
line up before their first recording contract. In particular
Silbermond, whose career started out similar to Juli's as a student
band singing English songs, they are frequently compared to Wir
Sind Helden by the media, which both bands consider nonsense. Juli
have recently appeared in a Dashboard Confessional music video
where lead singer Eva Briegel also sang.